"Oh, that I could die quickly and be at rest forever!"

Then I prayed fervently a long, heartfelt, earnest prayer, after which I felt more calm, more resigned to my fate. I had no hopes of being rescued and being brought back to life--that hope had quite left me. I now only wished for a speedy and peaceful death. Many weary hours I lay on my back within my narrow prison--rigid--immovable--a living soul amongst the dead. The silence that reigned around was intense, almost inconceivable to those accustomed to the busy world without.

I missed the rustling of the leaves, the chirping of the birds, the distant lowing of cattle, the hum of human voices, every sound of life; all was still, for it was *the silence of the grave*. The only sound at all audible, and that was so indistinct and muffled from the pile of earth that covered me that, had my sense of hearing not been excited to an abnormal pitch, I should not have heard it, and that was the sound of the church clock as it struck the hour. I had been buried in the morning at about ten o'clock, and I remember counting the hours until ten o'clock at night. Every hour appeared to me a century, until, exhausted with the agony of mind I had endured, I fell asleep and dreamed of Molly. I thought that I was by her side walking under the trees in a part of the country that I had never seen before.

There was a house at some distance, which she said belonged to her aunt. I was telling her all about how I came to be buried alive, and she was listening to me and looking up in my face with tearful eyes, for she had heard that I was dead. I also dreamed that I saw a serpent moving in the grass at her feet. I sprang up and beat it severely with my cane. At first it attempted to defend itself, but at length it escaped from me severely bruised.

The dream then changed from one subject to another, but Molly was by my side throughout. It was exceedingly vivid, and I doubted not at the time but that I was by her side in reality.I know not how long I had been asleep when I heard a confused noise while still in a dreaming state, and I awoke to find myself once more in my coffin.

"Oh, why was not this dream allowed to last?" I groaned to myself, and tried to fall asleep again, hoping to take up the thread of my dream at the point that I had lost it, but in vain, for now I heard the same noise in reality over my head. It was the sound of men's voices. Who could they be? Was I still dreaming? No! They were the resurrectionists, or the "body-snatchers," as we generally call them. They had 

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